What are you currently reading?

[Mookalafalas]

Hey Al

If you ate looking specifically for private eye books
Ross Macdonald -- anything from the 60s. I like The Chill especially. Earlier books are different.
James Crumley -- his early three books from the 70s, eg The Last Good Kiss
These are great.

And for something a bit odd, Paul Auster's NY trilogy

Thanks again, Ken.  I've only read the Paul Auster.  I haven't heard the name Ross Macdonald in years, and have never heard of Crumley, but will have a look-see

[Philo]

Milton.

Back to Proust. Perhaps Milton once I get to my next slight respite.

[Wakefield]

I'm not sure I understand the comment but I found it oddly funny!
Pope is incredibly brilliant -- that couplet above is some sort of pinnacle in the English language -- and often funny but I find him too bloodless to read in large amounts. I'll take Milton or Donne or Blake.

The first time I was interested in Pope was when I read this from the Spoon River Anthology:

89. Mrs. George Reece

TO this generation I would say:   
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.   
It may serve a turn in your life.   
My husband had nothing to do   
With the fall of the bank—he was only cashier.            5
The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes,   
And his vain, unscrupulous son.   
Yet my husband was sent to prison,   
And I was left with the children,   
To feed and clothe and school them.     10
And I did it, and sent them forth   
Into the world all clean and strong,   
And all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet:   
“Act well your part, there all the honor lies."   


[Drasko]

Just finished this, and I'm in awe. Absolutely love it! Now have to get everything else this woman wrote, unfortunately that's not much: two novels and one other collection of stories.

[Mookalafalas]

Just finished this, and I'm in awe. Absolutely love it! Now have to get everything else this woman wrote, unfortunately that's not much: two novels and one other collection of stories.

  Yeah, O'connor is amazing, and so weirdly brutal. For some reason I've been thinking about several of her stories recently. The darkest ones just imprint themselves on your mind forever (I haven't read any of the stuff in 25 years, I think). Unfortunately, the two novels are closer to novellas in length.  If you haven't, you might also want to try Carson McCullers.  Even less prolific, and less dark, less quirky, but very powerful with the same weird "southern gothic" sensibility (Ballad of the Sad Cafe, for example). 

[stingo]

I'm three chapters into Ulysses by James Joyce.

[Drasko]

  Yeah, O'connor is amazing, and so weirdly brutal. For some reason I've been thinking about several of her stories recently. The darkest ones just imprint themselves on your mind forever (I haven't read any of the stuff in 25 years, I think). Unfortunately, the two novels are closer to novellas in length.  If you haven't, you might also want to try Carson McCullers.  Even less prolific, and less dark, less quirky, but very powerful with the same weird "southern gothic" sensibility (Ballad of the Sad Cafe, for example).

Thanks for mentioning McCullers. I was familiar with the name but never read anything. Though I've seen the movie John Huston made from her novel Reflections in a Golden Eye which I did like. Interestingly Huston also made a movie from Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood as well, which I really loved (that was the way I first heard of O'Connor). O'Connor and McCullers apparently couldn't stand one another. I sure will try some McCullers writing.

[Brian]

Carson McCullers is extraordinary. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a beautiful, fascinating, and sad novel, and the novella (The Member of the Wedding, I think?) is especially surreal, funny, and heartbreaking. It actually made me uncomfortable. That one follows a teenage girl so madly in love with the wedding party that she thinks she can follow them on their honeymoon.

[ritter]

I bought this about a year ago in Brussels, and have finally got around to reading it...It's a collection of studies of the role some musicians played during those dark years (e.g. Honegger, Poulenc, Messiaen...). Not an indispensable read by any means...

[Artem]

The main plot of The Doll follows a story of a merchant, who falls in love with a girl from an aristocratic class. But, being over 600 pages the novel covers many dimensions of class, history, ideas and other subjects. Frankly speaking, I found it a bit dull during the first 300-400 pages of it, but it was worth finishing it.

[Mookalafalas]

Carson McCullers is extraordinary. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a beautiful, fascinating, and sad novel, and the novella (The Member of the Wedding, I think?) is especially surreal, funny, and heartbreaking. It actually made me uncomfortable. That one follows a teenage girl so madly in love with the wedding party that she thinks she can follow them on their honeymoon.

McCullers wrote the "Lonely Hunter" when she was 23, I think. I find that staggering.

  About O'connor not liking her, from the little I've read, nobody liked her very much.  She apparently didn't have very good social skills. 

   That "Member of the Wedding" used to be shown on network TV every year when I was a kid--often live, as I recall.  Sometimes a 40(?) year old actress played the 13 year old girl.  And did a great job.

[Ken B]

McCullers wrote the "Lonely Hunter" when she was 23, I think. I find that staggering.

  About O'connor not liking her, from the little I've read, nobody liked her very much.  She apparently didn't have very good social skills. 

   That "Member of the Wedding" used to be shown on network TV every year when I was a kid--often live, as I recall.  Sometimes a 40(?) year old actress played the 13 year old girl.  And did a great job.

It's been a week. Which 14 hard-boiled classics did you read?

[Mookalafalas]

It's been a week. Which 14 hard-boiled classics did you read?

   Got way slowed down.  I'm about 1/2 way through "Journey into Fear" which is quite good.  Too good, probably.  Not pulpy enough to just mash through.  I read the first 5 chapters of a Ross Macdonald and really disliked it.  I've mostly been downloading digital copies of all my {music} box sets as back-ups.  10 times easier than copying them myself, but still surprisingly time consuming (especially adding tags and cover art, etc).   It's winter break here, which means I am taking more care of my kids, and doing a lot more teaching (parents make their kids take extra classes during vacation). 

[Corey]

Lots of academic texts on Shinto and Japanese religion -- pretty much deathly dull to anyone not studying it.

[Drasko]

J. G. Ballard - The Drowned World

[Florestan]

Ion Ghica - Letters to Vasile Alecsandri

Of absolutely no value to anyone not interested in, and moderately familiar with, Romanian history in the general context of the diplomatic and military relationships between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, England and France, roughly between 1812 and 1859.

But from time to time there is something that I think it can make even the general audience laugh. For instance, this paragraph (my translation, slightly adapted):

As the year 1840 was approaching, all kind of catastrophic rumors were circulated: we´re going to be fried, believed some people, we´re going to be boiled, said another; to be thrown deep down in the abyss of the universe, some astrologers thought, to be lifted up high in the sky, said some prophets.

I must confess that I was ROTFL for about 10 minutes reading that. 

[Ken B]

As the year 1840 was approaching, all kind of catastrophic rumors were circulated: we´re going to be fried, believed some people, we´re going to be boiled, said another;

I must confess that I was ROTFL for about 10 minutes reading that. 

Oh sure, you laugh NOW, but when you are fry-boiled in another few years then we'll see who's laughing!

[Florestan]

Oh sure, you laugh NOW, but when you are fry-boiled in another few years then we'll see who's laughing!

I could name a few who´d rejoice over my being fry-boiled... 

[Ken B]

I could name a few who´d rejoice over my being fry-boiled... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broasting

[Florestan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broasting

Yeah, but is it halal?